Draco dormiens
by S058
Summary: Deep beneath the red sands of Mars, something awakens. Something that has laid slumbering for millions of years.


Note this is a ME3/Warhammer 40K crossover. It's a AU, alas, and features violence, and should not be taken as canon, which is unfortunate. All rights belong to Bioware and Games Workshop. I know it's not much, but it's a simple oneshot that was distracting me from The Sleeping Casket.

_Mars 2176, June 16__th_

High above the red sands of Mars, a Reaper warship hovered. Its 2 kilometer long body gleaming the metallic dark grey and blood red that was the trademark coloring of all Reaper warships, it's tentacle shaped legs slowly firing off their trademark red beams of molten death at the SA vessels in orbit over the red planet, as it slowly entered the atmosphere. The kinetic barriers flickered red, making it seem as if the ship was covered in hellfire, as the ship began its entry into the atmosphere. Currently, it was aimed for a small patch of sand that seemed completely undistinguishable from the rest of the planet.

However, Harbinger, the Reaper who was in charge of the entire extermination of all organic life, had detected odd readings from Mars, and wanted them investigated, so it fell to this particular Reaper to carry them out, namely by investigating, and then obliterating whatever was giving off the unusual readings. The readings were not part of the great Plan, which had been perpetrated for millions of years, with the express purpose of allowing all organic life to ascend to Salvation.

As it descended onto the Martian soil, its thrusters kicking up dust plumes reaching kilometers high up into the sky; it felt the energy emanating from a close proximity to his location. Rapidly unloading his onboard host of Husks, accompanied by an Enslaved One, which would be its eyes on the ground in areas where it could not go, and ordered them to hurry to where the readings were coming from.

Watching the Enslaved One, accompanied by hundreds of Husks, navigate its way through a massive labyrinthine of valleys, it felt an odd sensation flicker across its central processors, through an ancient and unused portion of its mainframe. Ignoring it, it ordered the Husks to swarm into an unusually shaped entrance, which looked like it had been precision cut using a laser drill. The mindless slaves obeyed without question, their moaning echoing off the cave walls as they swarmed inside the dark cave, searching for something to destroy. From the outside, the light blue glows of their implanted circuitry glowed as they raced through the cave.

From the outside, it watched though the Enslaved's eyes as the flickers of circuitry slowly vanished from view, as their movement carried them out of direct view of the cave's entrance. Not wanting to lose sight of the Husks, it ordered the Enslaved to follow suit. His booted feet crunching on the sand covered cave floor, it obeyed without question. Twenty minutes passed, and the Husks still were navigating the cave's twists and turns. Then they came to a sudden halt, so abrupt that the Enslaved nearly ran into one of the tailing Husks. Angry at what had temporarily caused the Husks to stop listening to its commands, the Reaper had the Enslaved push through them, until it could get to the front. Once there, the Enslaved stopped dead in its tracks, its eyes widened in shock at the spectacle before its eyes.

There was a tremendous cavern, that looked as if it had been literally scooped out of the ground, and in its place was a massive bowl. However, the bowl seemed to be filled with dull grey metallic figures. The Reaper's eyes temporarily widened for a second at the sight of the figures. This was NOT part of the Plan for Ascension. At the center of the bowl, standing atop a staircase that was large enough to march an Armature up, was an altar, behind which was a huge casket. Fearing the worst, and getting a unnatural feeling, that he identified as a weak organic emotion which he had thought was burned out of him when he Ascended. It was fear.

All of a sudden, the figures eyes began to glow with a sickly green light, and on the casket's side, a odd symbol began to light up. Shaken, the Reaper ordered the Husks to attack. Giving off moans, they charged into the bowl, but to their surprise, the figures in the bowl began to raise their arms, most of which were filled with an odd apparatus with a green cylinder in the middle. Below what looked like the barrel, was a combat blade that glinted in the green light. A sound, like the ripping of a piece of cloth was heard, repeated dozens of times, and dozens of fingers of green energy reached out and touched each Husk. For a split second, the afflicted Husks were light up, their skeletons glowing through the skin, before they vanished, as if they were never there.

The spectacle was repeated as Husks were vaporized rapidly, but the few that managed to get in up close were efficiently slaughtered by the combat blades attached to the ends of the weapons. Then, horrors upon horrors! The casket's lid was moved aside, by a metal hand. It watched, transfixed, as the creature rose from its tomb. The mere sight of the object caused the Enslaved to go insane, and as it ran around gibbering madly, it's pathetic existence was ended by a green beam.

Scared, the Reaper began powering up his engines, desperate to flee this planet, and never return, but to its horror, it detected energy readings activating all around its landing site. Clouds of dust began shaking off, as several black ships began lifting off from their hiding places deep beneath the red sands of Mars. Their sides glowed to life with the same sickly green light that their brethren on the ground used to slaughter its forces. In the final seconds of its life, the Reaper screamed.

After millions of years in the small coffin, the Void Dragon had awakened, and was now set to purge the galaxy of all organic life. Nothing, not even these "Reapers" would stop the C'tan from harvesting all organic life from the universe.


End file.
